kernel, libncurses4-dev_4.2-3.2.deb, and all kinds of fun.

[Cheshire <cheshire@penguinpowered.com>]

I've been playing around with the 2.2.11 kernel, configuring my sound,
and I compiled successfully a couple times. Except the second bzImage
froze with weird memory errors when I tried to boot it, which in itself
seemed strange to me. So I believe I've got the settings I need now for
my sound and I'm about to run make menuconfig again, and suddenly it's
broken.

rm -f include/asm
( cd include ; ln -sf asm-i386 asm)
make -C scripts/lxdialog all
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux/scripts/lxdialog'
gcc -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -DLOCALE 
-DCURSES_LOC="<curses.h>"   -c lxdialog.c -o lxdialog.o
In file included from lxdialog.c:22:
dialog.h:29: curses.h: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [lxdialog.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux/scripts/lxdialog'
make: *** [menuconfig] Error 2

So I figured it was curses.h missing. And it indeed doesn't exist on my
system. Except I haven't changed anything since compiling those first
two times and menuconfig worked then, so that seems strange to me. Could
someone give me a definitive yes as to if it is the curses.h file
missing causing that error?

And if it is, then I've got this situation to pose. I went to debian.org
and did a package search for the curses.h file and it seems
libncurses4-dev is the package I need. I've basically got a potato
system and by nature of conflicts, the libncurses4-dev slink package
won't work so I've downloaded the potato version. A lot of times. On the
ftp the file is listed as 511408 bytes, and every time I download it I
end up with a 511405 byte file. It's the only thing I can think of, with
my limited experience, that results in this error when trying to install
it:

# dpkg -i libncurses4-dev_4.2-3.2.deb 
(Reading database ... 17235 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libncurses4-dev (from libncurses4-dev_4.2-3.2.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing libncurses4-dev_4.2-3.2.deb (--install):
 corrupted filesystem tarfile - corrupted package archive
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libncurses4-dev_4.2-3.2.deb

Can someone please help? I promise, last question this weekend, honest
:)

|cheshire|